Synthetic Aperture Processing for creating completely virtual arrays from towed co-prime sensor array data

In this paper, we consider the use of synthetic aperture processing for developing completely virtual arrays designed for an operational wavelength other than that of a physical array. In towed array scenarios, we show it is possible to exploit existing array motion to mitigate the effects of main-lobe widening and spatial aliasing when source wavelengths are different from the operational wavelength of the towed array. In particular, we demonstrate the advantage of using a class of thinned arrays know as co-prime linear sensor arrays in conjunction with synthetic aperture processing for creating virtual uniform linear arrays derived form physical channel data.